It was in a laconic tweet that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced on Sunday a private visit to Greece's Muslim minority in Thrace, before his meeting on Monday with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis: "
In Greece for meet members of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace and discuss our bilateral relations
”.
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Posted as soon as it landed at Alexandroupolis airport, the tweet raises the thorny question of the designation of this minority of Western Thrace, which numbers up to 150,000 Muslims. The Lausanne Treaty of 1923 granted them minority status at the end of a war between Turkey and Greece, which sounded the death knell for the Ottoman Empire.
Mr Cavusoglu had raised the same question in mid-April during a parade on a wide range of subjects with his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, during a stormy press conference in Ankara. “
You don't allow the Turkish minority to call themselves Turkish. You call them Muslims
”, objected Mr. Cavusoglu. "
If they say they are Turkish, they are Turkish - you have to admit it
", he added to Mr. Dendias, who had for his part relayed the deep dissatisfaction of Greece with the transformation by Turkey , last year, from Saint Sophia Cathedral from museum to mosque.
Turkish Foreign Minister is due in Athens on Sunday afternoon and will be received on Monday by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his counterpart Nikos Dendias in an effort to maintain dialogue after deteriorating relations between the two countries .